Sprayers are commonly used in agriculture, horticulture and such things as golf course maintenance where chemicals are mixed with water and then sprayed on the ground or on growing crops. Sprayers can be mounted on or towed by a vehicle on the ground or aerial, carried by airplanes or helicopters.
Sprayers commonly comprise a tank of fluid, a pump for pressurizing and distributing the fluid through pipes or hoses to spray nozzles, and means to control the fluid pressure. They typically have a plurality of nozzle bodies, each securing a spray nozzle, spaced apart on a boom, perpendicular to the direction of travel, at a standard spacing distance which corresponds to the spray pattern of the nozzles. The booms typically swing in for transport and out for operation. Sprayers mounted on airplanes have booms secured to the wings.
The booms may be of the "wet boom" type, where the boom comprises a frame member with a pipe mounted thereon, the fluid passing through the pipe into nozzles mounted on the pipe and fluidly connected thereto, or a "dry boom" type, where the nozzles are mounted to the frame member and fluid passes to the nozzles through a hose which is connected between the nozzles.
The dry boom system has the advantage of being modular, and therefore very flexible. Various nozzle bodies can be mounted directly to a frame by whatever method that is convenient. Flexible hoses are then used to supply pressurized fluid to the nozzle bodies, typically by connection with hose clamps from one nozzle holding member to the next.
The wet boom does not have this flexibility. Different lengths of pipe are required on a sprayer, and damage to one part of a pipe requires replacement of the whole pipe. As the nozzle holding member must be mounted on the pipe, mounting methods are more limited.
One of the present problems with the dry boom system is that with today's wider and faster sprayers, much greater volumes of fluid must flow through the hoses. Hoses with sufficient diameter to accommodate theses flows and contain the required pressures are expensive. For this reason, in today's larger sprayers, the "wet boom" system is most often used.
The present common nozzle holding member design allows for connection of the pressurized fluid supply at one end, a check valve to prevent dripping in the middle, and attachment of a screen and nozzle at the opposite end.
The attachment of the nozzle holding member to the boom is a time consuming operation, both for the dealer or manufacturer at the set-up stage before delivery, and for the operator when doing repairs or maintenance. Repairs by the operator should be done wearing rubber gloves to protect from contact with chemicals being used, however removing present nozzle bodies is difficult when so encumbered and so operators often do not use gloves. Operator repairs are often required, such as when a nozzle strikes an obstacle in the field and breaks off.
In the dry boom system, the nozzle holding member typically has two hose barbs, with the hose joining each nozzle holding member, the nozzle holding member thereby becoming a part of the conduit carrying fluid to the next nozzle holding member. These systems use a two part clamp to secure the nozzle holding member whereby the first part of the clamp is fixed to the boom, recesses on the nozzle holding member are engaged with the first part of the clamp, and the second part of the clamp is placed around the nozzle holding member and fastened to the first part of the clamp with bolts, screws or the like.